Move-in day arrives at Via Robles

ESCONDIDO —— Earl Spells waited patiently in the lobby of the
vacant Via Robles apartment complex on Saturday, while his
girlfriend signed the papers for their new home.

Since the first time Spells, his girlfriend and her sons and
brother visited three months ago to see the blossoming
affordable-housing project along South Escondido Boulevard, the
family has had its eyes on moving in.

"The first time we came out, it was just sticks," said Spells,
55. "It didn't have no meat on it."

Between rainfalls this weekend, and throughout the month,
Spells' family and about two dozen other residents will trickle
into their new one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments in an area
that used to house a ramshackle 72-space trailer park.

The 24 apartments that opened Saturday are part of a
redevelopment project funded in part by the city of Escondido that
mixes low-rent apartments with market-rate housing and street-side
retail space.

Trinity Housing Group, which built the project along with its
nonprofit partner, Wakeland Housing and Development Corp., plans to
open an additional 48 apartment units later this spring.

Monthly rents for the apartments range from $550 for the
smallest units to $1,350 for a three-bedroom apartment, depending
on the occupants' income.

To qualify for a rental contract, potential residents have to
earn between 50 percent and 80 percent of the median income for the
area, or roughly between $34,200 and $54,700 for a family of
four.

For Spells' family of five, the $986 rent their sparkling
three-bedroom apartment will run each month amounts to several
hundred dollars less than what they pay for their two-bedroom place
in Oceanside.

"It seems the closer to the water you are, there's no limit (on
rent)," Spells said.

North County's high rents, which average upwards of $1,000
according to one recent report, have driven a strong wave of
interest in the affordable housing complex.

Megan Signes, the apartment complex's resident manager, said
Trinity received about 200 applications during the last three
months and that lease contracts have been signed for all but a
handful of apartments.

"Most of those people are from North County —— Escondido
specifically," Signes said, adding that applications also came in
from people living in Vista, San Marcos and Oceanside.

The redevelopment project is part of a larger effort to
rehabilitate a blighted section of south Escondido. In 2003, the
City Council contributed $7.2 million in loans to help cover the
costs of the affordable housing portion of the $30 million Trinity
project.

Trinity also built a 15-unit apartment complex on Orange Place
that opened last summer.

Beverly Peterka, the city's housing manager, said helping to
fund a project that will bring together business and housing for
families of differing tax brackets was money well spent.

"This will give some beautiful new rental properties to the
community," she said. "This is one of our first mixed-use,
mixed-income investments, and I think it's a great tool in our
redevelopment efforts."

The project also includes 10 detached houses and nine
"shopkeeper" units that combine living quarters with ground-level
storefronts. Those units will all sell for market value, between
about $390,000 and $570,000.